Kid Buu Addresses Child Abuse Charges, Being a Clone and Brainwashing

In a short period of time, Kid Buu has become both an exciting rapper on the rise and the subject of a bit of scandal.

The 30-year-old Florida rapper, who once went under the moniker Humongous the God, grew a buzz on SoundCloud with his Ski Mask The Slump God-assisted single "Double Up (Run It Up)" and "Death 2 SoundCloud," a siren-induced track with more than 2 million streams. Yet as Buu's music has garnered more listeners, shocking details about his pre-fame life have also emerged, calling his character into question.

Miami-Dade court records from 2008 surfaced earlier this year showing that Kid Buu (born Markquez Lao Santiago) plead guilty to charges of child abuse, obstruction of justice, robbery and criminal mischief. Buu sat down with XXL to speak on the charges for the first time.

According to Kid Buu, the charges aren't what they seem. He says he was erroneously reported to police and accused of intimidating and threatening a witness with a firearm, allegations that he denies. While he claims he's unable to rehash the incident in detail (more on that later), Buu says that the victim—a minor who was allegedly slated to testify against the rapper's friend—was unharmed and thus decided not to press charges. Still, the case was picked up by the state of Florida, which added the child abuse charge.

"The child abuse is, in fact, labeled 'child abuse with no harm,'" Kid Buu tells XXL, clarifying the charge. He says he was 18 at the time of the incident and that the alleged victim was either 16 or 17 years old. Buu was put on probation after the case, according to legal documents. "When you play with Florida, they make things sound even more nastier than what it needs to be. I was like, I'm just gonna plead guilty for my own convenience to move on with life."

Kid Buu faced another controversy in September, when a woman named Sarah Penman released a 49-minute YouTube video calling him of being a compulsive liar and emotional abuser. In the clip, Penman (who says she was 18 at the time they dated) details how their "toxic relationship" unraveled, adding that he misrepresented his age and lied about having a daughter. Buu, however, denies all of accusations.

"For starters, it's a girl I met on Tinder," he laughs, chalking up the allegations to clout chasing. "They're willing to do anything and everything, even if it's dishonor someone who was a kind friend in the past."

Buu also opens up about some of the more bizarre aspects of his persona, such as previous claims that he's a second-generation clone and that his memory was previously wiped away. The pink-haired artist recalls a UFO encounter that he says led to him joining the Raelian movement, a group of like-minded individuals who believe that life on Earth originates from extraterrestrial lifeforms. He says that many memories from his past—particularly negative ones—were erased in a hypnosis therapy that acts as a brainwashing of sorts.

"It eliminates anything that is aggressive in the mind and that is just gonna be toxic to you or your livelihood," Kid Buu says of the process, insisting that this makes it difficult for him to recall the events that led to his aforementioned abuse charge. "For that reason, a lot of stuff is really hard to remember." ​

Watch the video above to see Kid Buu speak on his legal record, cloning and his experience being brainwashed.